making the thin metal creak.
‘OK, then,’ Erik says.
‘He got a taxi from Arlanda, and found her dead,’ the superintendent goes on. ‘We don’t know exactly what he did after that, but he was certainly busy. We’re not sure where she was lying to start with, we found her tucked up in bed in the bedroom … He cleaned up as well, wiped away the blood … he doesn’t remember anything, he says, but the furniture had been moved, and the blood-soaked rug was already in the washing machine … he was found more than a kilometre away from the house, a neighbour almost ran him over on the road, he was still wearing his blood-soaked suit, no shoes.’
‘I’ll certainly see him,’ Erik says. ‘But I must say at the outset that it would be wrong to try to force information from him.’
‘He has to talk,’ she says stubbornly, squeezing the can tighter.
‘I understand your frustration, but he could enter a psychosis if you push too hard … Give him time, he’ll tell you what you need.’
‘You’ve helped the police before, haven’t you?’
‘Many times.’
‘But this time … this is the second murder in what looks like a series,’ she says.
‘A series,’ Erik repeats.
Margot’s face has turned grey and the thin lines round her eyes are emphasised by the light from the lamp.
‘We’re hunting a serial killer.’
‘OK, I get that, but the patient needs—’
‘This murderer has entered an active phase, and isn’t going to stop of his own accord,’ she interrupts. ‘And Björn Kern is a disaster from my point of view. First he goes round and rearranges everything at the crime scene before the police get there … and now we can’t get him to tell us what it looked like when he arrived.’
She drops her feet to the floor, whispers to herself that they need to get going, then sits there stiff-backed, panting for breath.
‘If we put pressure on him now, he may clam up for good,’ Erik says, unlocking his birchwood cabinet and removing the fake-leather case containing his camera.
She gets to her feet, puts the can down on the desk at last, picks up her badge and walks heavily towards the door.
‘Obviously I realise that this is seriously bloody awful for him, given what’s happened, but he’s going to have to pull himself together and—’
‘Yes, but it’s a lot more than awful … it might actually be impossible for him to think about it at the moment,’ Erik replies. ‘Because what you’ve described sounds like a critical stress response, and—’
‘Those are just words,’ she interrupts, her cheeks flushing with irritation.
‘A mental trauma can be followed by an acute blockage—’
‘Why? I don’t believe that,’ she says.
‘As you may know, our spatial and temporal memories are organised by the hippocampus … and that information is then conveyed to the prefrontal cortex,’ Erik replies patiently, pointing to his forehead. ‘But that all changes at times of extreme arousal, and in cases of shock … When the amygdala identifies a threat, both the autonomous nervous system and what’s known as the cortisol axis are activated, and—’
‘OK, what the hell, I get it. Loads of stuff happens in the brain.’
‘The important thing is that this degree of stress means that memories aren’t stored as they usually are, but at an effective distance … they’re frozen, like ice-cubes, separately … closed off.’
‘I get it, you’re saying he’s doing his best,’ Margot says, putting her hand on her stomach. ‘But Björn may have seen something that can help us stop this serial killer. You have to get him to calm down, so he starts talking.’
‘I will, but I can’t tell you how long that’s going to take,’ he replies. ‘I’ve worked in Uganda with people who’ve suffered the trauma of war … people whose lives have been completely shattered. You have to move slowly, using security, sleep, conversation, exercise, medication—’
‘Not hypnosis?’ she asks, with an involuntary smile.
‘Sure, as long as no one has exaggerated expectations about the result … Sometimes gentle hypnosis can help a patient to restructure their memories so that they can actually be accessed.’
‘Right now I’d give the go-ahead for a horse to kick him in the head if that would help.’
‘OK, but that’s a different department,’ Erik says drily.
‘Sorry, I get a bit impatient when I’m pregnant,’ she says, and he can hear how hard she’s trying to sound reasonable. ‘But I have to identify any parallels with the first murder, I need a pattern if I’m going to be able to track down this murderer, and right now I haven’t got a thing.’
They’ve reached the patient’s room. Two uniformed police officers are standing outside the door.
‘This is important to you,’ Erik says. ‘But bear in mind that he’s just found his wife murdered.’
Erik follows Margot into the room. It has been furnished with two armchairs and a sofa, a low white table, two chairs, a water dispenser with plastic cups, and a wastepaper bin.
On the floor under the windowsill is a broken pot, the linoleum floor strewn with soil.
The air is thick with stress and sweat. The man is standing in the far corner, as if he were trying to get as far away as possible.
When he sees Erik and Margot he slides towards the sofa with his back against the wall. He’s extremely pale, with a hunted look in his bloodshot eyes. His pale blue shirt has sweat rings under the arms, and is hanging outside his trousers.
‘Hello, Björn,’ Margot says. ‘This is Erik, he’s a doctor here.’
The man looks anxiously at Erik, then moves back into the corner.
‘Hello,’ Erik says.
‘I’m not ill.’
‘No, but what you’ve been through means that you have the right to treatment,’ Erik replies matter-of-factly.
‘You don’t know what I’ve been through,’ the man says, then whispers something to himself.
‘I know you haven’t been given any tranquillisers,’ Erik says calmly. ‘But I’d like you to know that the option is there, if—’
‘What the fuck do I want a load of pills for?’ he butts in. ‘Will pills help? Will they make everything all right?’
‘No, but—’
‘Will they let me see Sanna again?’ he shouts. ‘That’s not going to happen – is it?’
‘Nothing can change what’s happened,’ Erik says seriously. ‘But your relationship to what has happened will change, regardless of whether you—’
‘I don’t even understand what you’re saying.’
‘I’m just trying to find a good way to explain that the way you’re feeling is part of a process, and that you can accept my help with that process if you want to.’
Björn glances at him briefly, then slips further away along the wall.
Margot puts her little recording device on the table, babbles the date and time, and the names of those present in the room.
‘This